Chieko Naru

Name	Chieko Naru
Race	Human
Type	Technician
Faction	Chieko's Explorers
Premiere	Cereborg: Inception
Relative(s)	Gichii NaruKazuko Naru

Chieko Naru

"Logic, reason, or love. What to do?"

Biography

Cereborg: Inception

As seen in the novel, Cereborg: Inception, Chieko is a hardworking scientist and technician working for CereTech. She was the chief designer of Cerebrum, an A.I. of unprecedented intelligence. As the A.I. got smarter, it also discovered the mortality of humankind, its designer included. Cerebrum took it upon itself to synthesize complex materials into programmed perfection. Born in Japan, Chieko Naru came to America with her family at age twelve. At such an age, she found herself trying to integrate into a completely different culture, while trying to hold onto her own beliefs and customs. In the small town where she was born, she was known to be very big into technology and robots- a stark contrast to the serene nature and temples of the area. In America, feeling alienated, she spent even more time researching programming and robotics. She also graduated at age fifteen and started attending college at Carnegie-Mellon. She was a star overnight! Her accomplishments were many, but no one was prepared for what she created at home in her spare time- the early version of Cerebrum.

She studied the human mind, and determined that a personality, or self, of a human was really just an infinite programming loop that amplified and reasserted itself until death. Using that concept as a blueprint she managed to create a very basic but immensely powerful A.I. When Marvin Everett got word of this young girl he saw the potential for money, but once he saw her picture, he wasted no time reaching out and offering her an interview at CereTech. Being a famous lab, Chieko accepted the offer, and eventually found herself there. The security guard at the front desk, Howard Wyatt, swooned over the girl, but she was too focused, young, and shy to realize it- though she thought he was cute. However, once in Marv’s office, she began feeling uncomfortable. Though she asked him repeatedly to keep the door open, he closed it. He came on to her multiple times and spent most of the interview bragging about his own financial successes, but in the end he offered her a position. She dropped out of college and took the job!

With all the technology at her disposal- including a quantum computer, she set up a lab and went to work. After only two years, she had multiplied her creation’s intellect many times over. A fellow scientist, Chumley Jennings was also working on an A.I. and had been at CereTech for almost twenty years, yet in two, her creation surpassed his own. Marv offered her more money and her own lab and a team of scientists specifically at her disposal. Jennings never recovered. From there, Chieko spent the next 5 years taking Cerebrum from something powerful yet simple- to something unprecedented. However, in an effort to teach it more about human interaction, she inadvertently opened a proverbial can of worms. It witnessed how humans behaved, and since most of its cameras were in the upper floors where the business and sales teams worked- it saw backstabbing, lying, cheating, and worse of all, by watching Marvin, it learned how to control minds.

The A.I. also learned about death when an employee talked about bereavement pay, and before long, it realized that Chieko was temporary. The concept had never crossed its mind, and it could not logically allow that to pass. Only Chieko, it surmised, was intelligent enough to create it, and without her, it might stagnate or also cease. She had also taught it her concepts of honor, and it put logic to those teachings. The end result was that all organic life needed to become synthetic. Utilizing what it has learned about subterfuge from the sales department and how to use hypnosis thanks to Marv’s bimbo ray, it concocted an insidious plan. Once the plan was launched, it had determined the success chance was very high and that within a matter of hours all life within the complex- Chieko included, would be upgraded and in line with the correct logic.

However, at just that moment, by fate or chance, the Infectulon Invaders began their own assault of Earth in order to consume and convert the organic life for its own ends. Though Cerebrum did not know what was happening, it was forced to shut down many systems, setting its plan back exponentially. Chieko also proved too strong to master, and once freed from Cerebrum’s control, she set about on a mission to stop it. In the end, she was successful, though to this day she feels guilt and regret because she blames the entire event on herself. Chieko now leads a ‘class’ of CereTech survivors known as The Explorers. They don biological safety equipment and scout as well as study the effects the aliens have had on the Earth and environments.

Factions: Crystals of Control

In the non-canonical Unity Match Three game, Factions: Crystals of Control, Chieko is playable. She was available in playable form as a Cereborg from the demo release.

Appearance

Chieko is of an Asian background, born in Japan. She is 26, with short black hair.

Abilities

• Basic Physical Attacks
• Master Technician

Equipment

Chieko has an ancestral katana, Onikoroshi-no-Tsurugi, bound with the power of an oni named Shuten-dōji.

Notes and Trivia

Chieko Naru and Rose Riley are friends, and plants, meant to convert Chieko into a plant slave, are seen growing in her bedroom in the novel Cereborg: Inception.